Apr 11, 2010

New traditions needed

Good Masters this year. I still believe Freddie would have 3 jackets (instead of 1) if he could putt over the last 5 years. He should have been -17 or better today.

Anyway, we need new traditions. We all know where the pins are going to be on the Sunday of the Masters. And, of course, the pros do too ----- and they know exactly where to aim in order to get the roll/bounce they need to funnel to the hole. They don't have to aim at flags, but aim at areas, and the ball will roll dutifully.

Let's change it up. Let's make the players think and be on edge on Sunday. My proposal for the 2011 pin positions:

#10: OK, we can keep it back right. Having it up front is too tough given that.....

#11: Gees, this is Sunday at the Masters. Get the lake in play. Back left. Hell, bring the back water in play too.

#12: Right is fine.

#13: This has got to change. Move the pin 10 feet more to the right, or 10 feet closer to the creek - else put it back right. Let's see the front and right misses go in the water.

#14: There are no real good places here. Switch middle and right every other year.

#15: C'mon, let's see some action. Dead left. And shave the back fringe so balls can go bounding into the lake behind it.

#16: No more back left. How about front left, 3 steps on? Else back right. They have 7 irons - they should hit it like a laser.

#17: The Nicklaus pin from '86. Middle right?

#18: Enough of this as well. Back right.

2 comments:

Layup said...

Couldn't agree more. Thought that it was a little boring with the same hole locations and the same spots needing to be hit. It was cool to hear the roar of the crowds, so my thoughts are to have impossible hole locations in round 1-3 and then these easy pin placements for round 4.

mer said...

Couldn't disagree more with both of you. I love the current Sunday pin positions. I assume they follow the formula 6 easy, 6 average and 6 difficult positions a round. And, an easy pin position on Sunday should be more difficult than an easy on Thursday. 11 is difficult enough. Everybody bails out right. Move the pin closer to the water and you just give everybody a little more green to work with. Move 13 farther right and you'll just add 15' to everybody's putt. Anybody, going for that pin would be a moron. 16 back right for 2 days is ridiculous. Give them the moderate back left position.

With the current Sunday pins, someone could potentially shoot a 30 and win. We'd all love to see that again. That's why everybody loves Sunday at the Masters. This isn't the U.S. Open. I really don't have a problem with 1/2 the field who made the cut finishing under par. These guys are good.

The only problem I had this year was the longish rough around the hazards. I saw at least a couple of shots hold up on 12 and 15 that should have been wet.